


remember you well

by fondleeds



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Allusions to Crime, Ambiguity, Angst, Crime, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Language, It is now, M/M, Sharing a Bed, but not really?, is that a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 13:46:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21477361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fondleeds/pseuds/fondleeds
Summary: “Um,” Harry starts. He looks out of place. Louis can’t really believe he’s seeing Harry like this, so unsettled, so unlike himself. He holds out his hands. “Should we–. Should I, um. Did you wanna, like, cuff me to the bed or something?”Louis raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Do I need to?”-AU. Harry’s a criminal, Louis’ a cop, and they’re stranded overnight at the Motel 6.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 82
Kudos: 503





	remember you well

**Author's Note:**

> literally what is this hi im still alive
> 
> this idea popped into my head this morning while i was sitting outside listening to paul anka and i wrote it start to finish in a complete daze
> 
> i havent posted since like april i know im trash and i promise im working on actual things but heres this to try and make up for my brain malfunctioning for 90% of this year
> 
> title from chelsea hotel #2 because im extremely original
> 
> enjoy!!
> 
> **please do not translate or repost any of my work to alternate sites. **

Louis’ seen a lot of shit over the years. He’s been in a lot of bizarre, seemingly inescapable situations that really could have only been concocted and crafted by God or by whoever looks after karma or by some extremely inconvenient universal powers. He’s been battered and bruised and chased and shot at. He’s been the batterer and the bruiser and the chaser and the guy with the gun in his hand, too. He’s seen some _shit. _He’s dealt with inconvenience.

This, though. This might take the cake.

“No, _no,_” he groans, in almost perfect harmony with the engine, which sounds like it’s depressively deflating. “For fucks _sake._”

Three leaps forward, a punch in the nose back.

Literally.

“Piece of _shit_,” he hisses. He slams his palms down on the wheel and wipes at his mouth, the underside of his nose, grimacing at the stickiness there. He thought he’d stopped bleeding.

“Oh dear,” comes a voice from the back. “This is a bit of a predicament, isn’t it.”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear the sound of your voice.”

There’s a dull _humph,_ the sound of a body slumping back against the seat.

Louis’ starting to properly sweat now that the already abysmal A/C has turned off. The late noon sun is pouring down and soaking into anything it can find, and right now, Louis’ car, a blip all alone on this old black tar, is a magnet. Either side of them is desert, and mountains, grey-red-brown dust and a few near-translucent clouds. Louis exhales and rests his forehead on the hot leather of the steering wheel, the engine whistling and steaming along with him.

“So…what’s the plan?”

Louis leans back and glares at Harry in the rearview mirror, the very picture of innocence with his legs crossed, shoulders back, staring out to the desert with squinted eyes and a busted lip. Innocent. How ironic.

“The plan is that you don’t say anything,” Louis grits out. “The _plan _is that you get out and help me push this heaving pile of shit back into town so I can get it repaired and take you in.”

“Well, that hardly seems fair,” Harry says, petulant, like a child. He frowns and holds up his cuffed wrists. “I’m _handicapped_, Louis.”

“You’ll manage.”

“If only you hadn’t shot the tires out of _my _car,” Harry says, “which I’m still mad about, by the way. I loved that car.”

Louis swivels in his seat so he can face Harry head on. “You do _not _get to be condescending right now.”

They’re both covered in dust. Harry’s hair has gone limp against his temples, sun-kissed skin shiny with a film of sweat, and much like the back of Louis’ own hand, there’s a smudge of blood forming from his attempts to swipe at his lip. There’s also a few drops of it on his ridiculously expensive blouse. _Good, _Louis thinks, turning away and kicking the door open.

The heat is even more intense outside. He squints up at the sun, squints through the haze of the desert, then squints at the car.

He leans his head through the window. “Get out. Now. I wasn’t joking.”

“You’ve left the child-lock on.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

Harry doesn’t step out of the car so much as tumble, once Louis opens the door. He’s thin, thinner than he has been for a while, insufferable and dumb in skinny jeans when it’s over a hundred degrees out, though Louis isn’t exactly dressed for the occasion either, in denim shorts that are now more beige than lightwashed from their earlier scuffle in the dirt, and a tank top with chocolate stains at the hem.

Neither of them had expected to run into each other. Louis’ just lucky he had his gun and badge in the glovebox.

“You do realize it’s going to take us at least an hour to roll this thing back towards any form of civilisation, right?” Harry says, looking lazily over the top of Louis’ head at their surroundings, which Louis absolutely hates. He _hates _it when people do that.

“Maybe if _somebody _didn’t lead us on a wild goose chase into the middle of nowhere–”

“You didn’t have to follow me!”

Louis groans and puts a hand to his forehead. Takes a few very slow, even breaths.

“Just push the damn car, Harry.”

This is not how Louis saw his Wednesday afternoon going. He didn’t even know Harry was back in California, which just pisses him off more. Last Louis had seen, Harry was trailing through Florida, and then he’d been apparently spotted in Maine, of all places, but the trail went cold, has _been _cold, for almost six months now, their longest stint apart in what feels like years.

And then Louis had rolled down his window as he passed through Silver Lake, and he’d caught a glimpse of a very familiar looking red Jaguar that he’d definitely compounded only a year before, and sure enough, crossing the street with keys in hand, was Harry. Louis couldn’t believe his eyes. Couldn’t believe that Harry, of all people, would be that careless.

Now, they’re in the middle of nowhere, pushing Louis’ car down a deserted road in terse silence.

“I know you’re a Capricorn,” Harry says, then, out of the blue and with an exhausted puff of breath, words tight, “but this really would be so much easier if my hands weren’t cuffed together.”

Louis glares at him. Both their faces are trickled with sweat. Harry looks ridiculous, palms trapped together as he pushes, elbows awkward and gangly, like chicken wings.

But then–

“Wait, did you just call me stubborn by insulting my zodiac sign? How do you even _know _that?”

“I do my research,” Harry says haughtily, sniffing. “Unlike you, it seems.”

“Oh, go on, what’s yours?”

“You mean you don’t already know?” Harry has the audacity to actually look hurt.

“No, I don’t know your fucking astrological chart, Harry.”

“I’m an Aquarius,” Harry says proudly.

“Good for you,” Louis snaps, leaning more of his body weight into the car. His calves are fucking aching.

“Please uncuff me?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“_No_.”

Harry stops pushing the car, and Louis stumbles a little as their momentum slows.

“I swear to God–” Louis cuts himself off, heaving in a seething breath at the slow smirk curling over Harry’s features, already holding out his hands. “You’re a pain in the ass. Like, the most painful person I’ve ever met.”

“Just take them off,” Harry says, shaking his hands, the cuffs clinking together. “It’s starting to hurt.”

“You poor thing.”

“I know, it’s a struggle,” Harry says dramatically, laughing when Louis rolls his eyes.

Not a single car has passed them. Not a single other soul has made itself known since they left the last little stretch of civilisation behind them. Still, though.

“If you try _anything_,” Louis warns, reaching into his pocket for the key. “It’s over, Styles. I’m not kidding.”

“Come on, Lou,” Harry says, smile coy. He keeps squinting awkwardly against the sun. “Where am I gonna go out here?”

Louis meets his eye, their gazes unwavering for what feels like far too long. Harry just keeps smiling though, even going as far to soften his face, all pleading and wheedling, but Louis isn’t going to fall for it. He’s fallen for it before – not for a long time, but he has. He isn’t about to revert back to old habits. 

And, shock of the century, Harry is right. There’s nowhere for him to escape to.

Louis undoes the first cuff, the second. He looks away to fold them back into his pocket. Just a fraction of a second.

Harry runs. The bastard actually runs.

“_Hey!_” Louis shouts, his brain and his body not functioning together in the few seconds before it takes him to lurch towards the passenger side and reach for his gun. Harry’s already kicking up dust, becoming a speck as he sprints out into nothingness in his ridiculous fucking boots.

Louis takes off after him.

He can feel his pulse in his ears. His legs are going to fall off, he’s sure of it, a deep ache pushing up through his knees and into his hips as his feet slap against the hard dirt, inhaling all the grains that Harry’s flicking up in his wake.

“Harry, stop!” Louis shouts, thumbing the safety back on the gun. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Harry doesn’t stop.

“Stop!” Louis repeats, face flushing at the desperate crack that breaks a word with one syllable into a word with two. 

He shoots way left. The sound of it is like a whip, cracking through the air between them, a ripple that shoots out and unsettles the mountains and the distance between here and the next solid space, miles and miles away.

Harry doesn’t even flinch, because he probably knows, just as well as Louis does, that he’d never actually sink the bullet home.

In the end, Harry tires out, his stride slowing until he’s barely managing a jog, and it’s then that Louis pounces, forcing his body to push through the exertion so he can get there faster, so he can gets his hands around Harry’s shoulders, so he can topple them both to the ground and get Harry’s arms behind his back, which he does, eventually, despite how hard he struggles and kicks up a fuss.

“Are you _insane_,” Louis hisses, perched on the back of Harry’s thighs, the cuffs back in place.

Harry’s become docile and quiet, his back heaving under Louis’ palms as he tries to catch his breath. It’s difficult to inhale, the dust still settling around them, harsh sunlight doing nothing to help the red flush that’s taken over both of their bodies, sweat dampening their clothes and making the dried blood on their skin go dewy.

“A little,” Harry rasps, cheek squished into the dust, eyes closed against the sun. “I can’t believe you actually shot at me. I’ve been waiting for that.”

“What, for me to _shoot you?_” Louis says, though it’s more of a weird burst of words and gasps, lungs still shaky and clawing at any air they can.

“Something like that,” Harry mutters. The slow exhale he lets go creates a tiny cloud of dust.

Louis shakes his head in pure disbelief and wipes the sweat from his face.

-

The sun has started to come down by the time they push Louis’ car into the abandoned parking lot of a terrifying looking _Motel 6_. They hadn’t seen a single other person once they hit the town. Louis has the very distinct feeling that they were being watched as they struggled down the main strip, eyes peering out from windows and watching on silently, laughing to themselves before shutting the blind. Louis can wager that two bloodied, beat up guys pushing their car through town probably isn’t the weirdest thing the people living here have seen.

It’d come close, he’s sure, which is just another reason why they probably haven’t been approached by anybody.

The sky is burning that brilliant Cali red, bright orange on the horizon and brilliant slopes and shapes of gold slicing up through the gaps between buildings, almost physical in it’s presence when Louis squints against it, feeling the heat melting into the core of his bones. Beside him, hands cuffed back around to his front, Harry looks as ready to collapse as Louis feels, upper body bent over the back of the car so he can close his eyes and take pressure off his legs. Louis only allows himself one, two, three, seconds of staring before he tears his eyes away and opens the passenger side door to pop open the glovebox. Gun. Badge. Wallet. Cigarettes. His useless phone with zero battery. He leaves the stuff he pulled from Harry’s Jag. If he takes it with him, he’s almost positive Harry will try and slink away again.

“Let’s go, Styles.”

The lobby is deserted. Is that what he’s supposed to call this? The lobby? Louis isn’t sure. In the corner, the vending machines buzz menacingly, and the carpet is an off greeny-blue, the walls mostly bare save for the lifeless, vaguely threatening _Motel 6 _advertisements. The only saving grace is the air conditioning. Louis skin prickles.

There’s a tiny bell on the counter.

It takes four rings for somebody to come fumbling through the door Louis assumed once read _STAFF ONLY, _the letters now chipped away to a maybe-intentional _AFF ON. _The clerk looks completely miserable to be in their presence, and mildly bewildered, the longer the guy, just a young kid, really, a shock of ginger curls and a sunburnt nose, takes in their appearance.

“Uh.” He looks between them, eyes lingering on Harry’s cuffed wrists. “Welcome to _Motel 6?_”

“Yeah, hi,” Louis starts, forcing a stiff smile. “We need a room. Preferably with two beds. Preferably as far apart from each other as possible.”

“Uh,” the kid says again, gaze darting from Harry’s hands to Harry’s split lip and then to Louis’ bloody nose on loop, like a pinball being shot back and forth. “We only have doubles.”

“Double rooms or double beds?” Louis grits out, still smiling painfully.

“Double beds,” the kid says.

“What’s your name?” Harry says, then, out of the blue, all soft spoken and annoying. Louis whirls on him.

“Shut up–”

“Holden,” the kid says.

“Are you _sure _you don’t have any single beds?” Louis presses. “Absolutely sure?”

“I’m sure. The ceiling collapsed on one side of the motel so all the–”

“Holden, cool name,” Harry interrupts, still speaking all slow and smooth. “Like from that book. My name’s Harry. _Ha._ Harry and Holden. Like _Bonnie and Clyde._”

Louis rolls his eyes to the ceiling. Harry absolutely knows the name of the book and he absolutely knows that he’s being a nuisance right now. Louis just doesn’t know why, yet, but there’s always a reason. There’s always a reason with Harry.

“Right…” Holden says, stuck on Harry’s cuffed hands again.

“Holden, listen,” Harry says solemnly. “It appears I’ve been taken hostage against my will. Kidnapped, you might say–”

“_Don’t _listen to him,” Louis hisses, holding up a palm and glaring at Harry over his shoulder. “He’s a wanted criminal.”

“I need you to call the police, Holden,” Harry pleads, wringing his hands. “Can you do that for me? I’m in a lot of trouble.”

Something spikes in Louis’ chest at that. Something he doesn’t want to think about.

“_Holden,_” Louis says sharply, and the kid flinches, total deer in the headlights as he looks between them. Louis pulls out his badge. That gets Holden’s attention. “I _am_ the police. This man is under arrest. My car broke down and unless you know somebody who can fix it, _right _now, we’ll be needing a room.”

Holden, hands clutched to his chest, finally uncurls enough to shakily hand over a set of keys.

Louis snatches them out of his hands and starts to stalk off.

“Second floor, left at the stairs,” Holden calls after them quietly, sentence fading to nothing.

“Thanks, Holden,” Harry says sweetly. He adds in a tiny wave. Louis almost smacks his wrist.

-

The room is decrepit. One double bed. Two tiny bedside tables. One lamp. A boxy television that Louis fears may spark an electrical fire if he attempts to switch it on. He locks the door behind them.

“Can I take these off now?” Harry asks, perched on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees. The sheets are horrible.

“No,” Louis says.

Harry sighs and flops onto his back, eyes closed.

The air in the room is still and stale, too hot to be comfortable. Louis feels himself start to sweat again, can see the shine of it on Harry’s cheeks, at his temples. His jaw seems sharper than normal, fingers twitching where they rest over his stomach. He’d expected Harry to put up more of a fight again, to snark and shake his bound hands. He looks like he’s about to fall asleep. Louis runs a hand down the side of his face and cuts his eyes away.

“You should shower, or something,” he mutters, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s gonna be a long night.”

Harry peeks one eye open and tilts his face towards Louis. “You can go first, if you want. It’s my fault we’re both such a mess.”

“Nice try, Styles,” Louis says. He can picture it down to every last detail, the steam of the shower, the rush of the water in his ears, not loud enough to conceal everything, but enough for Harry to work with, enough for him to open the bathroom door, to grab the key from Louis’ shorts and work his cuffs off and escape. Louis wouldn’t be surprised if Harry ran off with his hands still bound. “I’m offended that you think I’d fall for something like that.”

Again, where Louis expects Harry’s trademark sarcasm, he just gets a severe frown.

Harry winces as he pulls himself up from the bed and fumbles into the tiny adjoining bathroom, banging his way through the cupboards to look for a towel. Louis sits on the end of the bed and listens, head slowly lowering into his hands. He rubs at his eyes, and the crusted blood that’s starting to itch his nose. The ache there is dull. Harry didn’t do enough damage to cause a break.

“Louis?”

When he glances up, Harry’s blinking at him from the bathroom, washed out by the sickly yellow light. He’s attempted to pull his blouse off, but it’s become a tangle at the place his hands meet, pulled taut across his back, the cuffs stopping him from taking it off completely. Confronted with the sight of Harry in nothing but his underwear, Louis steels himself as he stands and reluctantly takes the key from his pocket.

“No funny business,” he warns, key in the lock, waiting for Harry to meet his eye before he considers turning it.

When Harry does meet his eye, it takes Louis another few seconds after that, too, though the seconds feel more like minutes, the longer Harry looks at him. _How long has it been, since you’ve been this close? _A long time. Somewhere in Florida, heat and dampness and Harry always just out of reach, almost close enough to touch, but Louis was never fast enough. Even then, this is the first time in a long time they’ve actually been somewhere alone together.

Louis doesn’t know if the interrogation room counts. Things were different then. Harry appeared as a little fish in a big pond, a young and seemingly harmless witness that turned out to be the very guy they were looking for. They just didn’t know it yet. He ended up feeding Louis enough lies to throw off the case for months.

They were both a lot younger then, but this Harry, half-naked and all bruised and exhausted and wearing the same necklace he’s had since Louis started chasing him down, stranded in a _Motel 6,_ reminds Louis almost hauntingly of that time.

He undoes the cuffs.

“Thanks,” Harry mutters, rubbing at his tender skin. Louis doesn’t watch, absolutely not. He turns away and sits back on the edge of the bed, facing the door. Harry lingers for a few seconds, almost like he’s not sure where to go or what to do with himself, but then the door slides closed and the water starts, and Louis shakes his head at himself, forces his body to stay upright, not to collapse back into the questionable sheets and let Harry have another chance to flee. He can’t let that happen, not now, not after everything.

The relief settles in like a ghost over Louis’ left shoulder, and on his right, something else, something he ignores as he listens to the rush of the water.

-

Harry seems more himself after the shower, though still just as unimpressed that Louis cuffs his wrists back together. It might not even be necessary at this point, but Louis just–. He needs the certainty.

He doesn’t shower, too worried to leave Harry on his own.

“I could sit on the edge of the tub and wait,” Harry had suggested, already smiling, knowing it’d make Louis’ skin prickle.

“Stop talking,” Louis said. Harry just laughed.

Instead, he runs the spare towel under the sink, not bothering to wait for the water to warm, and gently washes the blood away from his face. He wipes under his eyes and across his neck, along his arms and legs, and then throws the soiled towel into the hamper, which he feels kind of weird about. He needs to remember to take that with them and burn it somewhere. Something like that.

“Can we watch TV?”

“No.”

“Can we play cards?”

“No – where the hell did you get cards from?”

“Found them in the drawer.”

They’re side by side, sprawled out on the bed. There’s a clock on the wall but the batteries are flat. Through the crack in the blinds, the last of the day’s orange light peers curiously through, a slanting strip of it running over their legs.

“Can we get some food? I’m hungry.”

“You’re insufferable,” Louis groans from behind his hands, sinking further down into the pillows.

“What?” Harry says incedulously. “It’s not my fault you decided to chase me down. I had dinner plans, you know. I was going on a _date._”

“I’m sure Prince Charming will forgive you when he comes to visit you in prison,” Louis says plainly, muffled by his palms. “You can explain everything to him through the glass, Styles.”

Harry hisses through his teeth. “Low blow, Tomlinson. Low fucking blow.”

Louis doesn’t laugh, but it’s a near thing. He manages to stop himself, letting out this weird puff of breath through his nose instead. That’s all Harry used to be to him. _Styles. That’s our guy. Six foot, medium build, brown hair, green eyes. Styles. Let’s get this fucker once and for all. _It was one of Louis’ first cases on the force; new squad, new city, California in all its glory, and there was Styles, revelling in the earthquakes he left behind him, slinking through the cracks to escape.

“Seriously, though,” Harry says. “I’m starving. I’m going to become more of a nightmare if you don’t feed me.”

Louis sighs.

The lobby is abandoned again when they trudge through the sliding doors, the drop in temperature just as off-putting the second time around. Harry makes a beeline for the vending machines. He looks ridiculous, cuffed hands and his boots ruined beyond repair. They’re probably worth a couple grand, probably from the stores Louis used to watch Harry duck in and out of with ease, trailing him along Rodeo and Sunset and waiting for him to slip up.

“We’re spoiled for choice,” Harry says.

Louis peers through the glass at the underwhelming array of artificial snacks. “Just an incredible selection, really.”

Harry turns to him, palms up. “Money.”

“Manners.”

“Please.” Harry’s mouth twitches. “Oh, _please–_”

Louis throws his wallet against Harry’s chest, who’s collapsed into quiet laughter.

“You asked,” is his explanation, nimble fingers thumbing Louis’ wallet open. Louis watches the movement almost like he’s delayed a couple seconds. It takes him far too long to realize he should have just gotten the money out himself. Harry starts to sort through his cards and receipts at an alarming pace. What he’s looking for, Louis doesn’t know, but he snatches the wallet back immediately.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

Harry beams.

“What do you want?” Louis sighs, nudging Harry out of the way to look in at the numbers under each snack.

“Well, I’m _really_ hungry,” Harry says. “So why don’t you just put your card in and I’ll take it from there?”

Louis eyes him. “I don’t think–”

“I feel so faint,” Harry gasps. He tries to put the back of his hand to his forehead but he must forget that his hands are locked together. He almost slaps himself in the face. “Louis, I think I’m _dying_–”

“Alright, alright,” Louis relents, slotting his card into the machine. “Drama queen.”

Harry punches in every number he can, watching with delight as the bags tumble down.

-

Cali heat sticks.

Louis’ from way north. Portland always felt like the inbetween of everything, dullness, the average, his family and his so called friends, weather included, never quite face-meltingly hot, never quite blisteringly cold. He’s been based in LA for almost four years now and he still hasn’t gotten used to it, the way he’ll be alone in his apartment but feel like he’s in a crowded room. Sometimes he thinks he has, but then there are nights like these, when it feels like the breath has been punched out of his lungs when he steps outside.

Everything is glazed in sweat, in this otherness, this quality of graininess that can only be made by muggy air, like each shift of the body, each look, is an attempt to see through a veil that isn’t really there. Like now, darkness coming down, Cali red bruised like fruit, thin banana-yellow strip on the horizon all that remains, his skin feels wet. In the very action of lifting his hand to wipe at his top lip, he feels the moisture, the tiny little droplets that cling onto his arm hair.

“This is disgusting,” Harry comments, words washed out by water.

They’re sitting at the pools edge. Louis’ the one who’s wearing shorts, but he refuses to dip his feet in, eyeing the grimy corners. Harry had rolled his tight jeans up his calves and swung his legs right in.

“This was your idea,” Louis counters, throwing a cheeto up into the air and catching it in his mouth.

They’re surrounded by trashy food. Louis feels weirdly comforted by it, and by the sound of the water as it laps against the pools edge, the light it casts, lit from underneath and turning their skin three shades of shifting blue. There’s nobody around, the night silent aside from the rustling of plastic and their chewing.

Harry’s working through a pack of Jolly Ranchers.

“What’ve you been up to?”

They haven’t really spoken since Harry made the executive decision to jump the locked pool gate. Louis wouldn’t call the silence comfortable or companionable, but he thinks he probably prefers it over Harry asking him life questions.

“Looking for you,” Louis says, only half-joking.

Harry ducks his head and scratches at his knee. “Been a while.”

“It has,” Louis says, slow, wondering if Harry is about to give up information without realizing it. “I think I should be asking you that question.”

Harry remains silent. He ducks forward to trace his fingers through the pool water. Louis sighs and watches the metallic glint of the cuffs. Right. That’s the end of that short-lived conversation, then. He lasts another few minutes before he shifts and pulls his half-crushed cigarette pack out of his pocket, lighter sliding out into his palm.

Harry waits until Louis’ put the pack back into his pocket to ask.

“Can I bum one?”

Louis glares at him through the smoke he exhales. “You’re a shit, you know.”

“C’mon,” Harry says. “You owe me that at least.”

“I don’t owe you a thing, Styles.”

“Sure you do,” Harry chirps, kicking his legs through the water. “A couple of surprise holidays to Florida, New York, Boston. You could’ve spent a bit of time in Europe, too, if you really wanted.”

“I’m not even going to bother asking how you managed to leave the country,” Louis says, exhaling slow with a laugh. “You sure as hell won’t tell me, anyway.”

Watching Harry trying to light a cigarette while handcuffed shouldn’t be as entertaining as it turns out to be. Harry’s got good hands. Quick, talented fingers. He shouldn’t be struggling this much. He is, though, lighter sparking up again and again, the bud in Harry’s mouth probably growing damp.

“Here, Styles.” Louis pinches the lighter from between Harry’s hands and holds it up to the cigarette. He lights it with a single flick of his thumb.

“Ta,” Harry mumbles out, inhaling big and slow with his fingers curled up into his palms. Only when he breathes out does he pull the cigarette away from his face.

Smoke and Cali heat. It’s an intoxicatingly strange mix.

Harry’s quiet, while he smokes. Louis hasn’t seen him with one for a while. He had them pinched in his fingers all the time, at the start. It was one of the first things they had in common with each other. Louis still remembers one of the run ins they had, when he’d been tracking Harry through California while he still lingered there, and they’d lit up at the same time, watching each other from across the street. Harry knew Louis was tailing him, by then.

Sometimes, he still thinks of it absently, the way they’d brought their hands to their mouth almost rhymically, watching, waiting, this unspoken challenge and connection forming, until everything burnt away and Harry slunk off.

Watching him now, there’s almost a reverence to the way he pulls smoke into his lungs and exhales. Eyes closed, cuffed wrists knocking, hunched into himself. Pool water licking at his calves. LA and its bustle and its noise and its heaving chest far, far away. He seems quiet. Settled.

“But, really,” Harry says a while later, cigarette burnt away to almost nothing, Louis’ crushed into the tile beside him. “What’ve you been doing?”

“Working,” Louis shrugs. “Hating LA, y’know. Usual.”

“Hm.” Harry takes one last drag. “You’re happy, though?”

Louis blinks at him, at this man, a wanted criminal he’s been playing mind games with for most of his time on the force.

“I suppose,” Louis says. “I suppose I am, yeah.”

Harry nods. “That’s good.”

He throws his cigarette butt into the water.

“Hey,” Louis chides, but Harry just smiles in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, split lip bruising up properly now. He looks tired. Thin. A spectral copy of the confident man Louis used to follow strolling down LA streets like he owned the place, the man Louis followed across the country, trying to put out the fires he left burning behind him, laughing all the while.

“Can we go back to the room?”

-

Louis has no idea what time it is.

They’ve managed to turn the television on without it exploding, but they had about thirty channels of static and three that worked, so Harry ended up muting it. It’s still on and splaying milky colours across the floor, slanting into the low gold of the lamplight. Louis’ been watching Harry play solitaire for what could be hours now. They played a few rounds of Egyptian Rat Screw, which, as it turns out, doesn’t really work with two people, then moved onto Black Jack, which also wasn’t as exciting with only two players.

Louis drew the line at Harry’s suggestion of Go Fish.

He was not going to play Go Fish with one of LA’s most wanted. Even if, deep down, he kind of really wanted to.

Now, though, he’s exhausted and on the edge of sleep. He can feel himself dipping into that liquid state of consciousness, and he can’t do that with Harry still up and huffing over the cards he’ll definitely steal from this room, if Louis lets him. Louis almost laughs to himself, at that. _Card theft. That’s enough to put him away, isn’t it?_ So is everything else he’s done. Louis needs to stop thinking, just for a second.

“We should get some sleep,” he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. “Tomorrow’s probably going to be a long day for both of us.”

Harry pauses and blinks up at Louis sleepily.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“I’ll call up the squad in the morning to come pick us up.”

Harry just nods again and looks back at his cards. He doesn’t make any move to keep playing or pack them up. Just stares.

“Harry.”

“Yeah, I–. Sorry.”

Clumsy palms gathering the cards in one big sweep. Louis watches Harry fumble with them, the way he curls into himself as he slots the cards back into a neat deck. His hands are shaking.

“Um,” he starts, once the cards are on the bedside. He looks out of place. Louis can’t really believe he’s seeing Harry like this, so unsettled, so unlike himself. He holds out his hands. “Should we–. Should I, um. Did you wanna, like, cuff me to the bed or something?”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Do I need to?”

“I won’t make that call for you,” Harry says. “And I won’t promise you anything, either.”

That, Louis already knows. He’d be a fool to trust anything Harry’s ever said to him.

“Come here, then,” Louis says softly, twitchy fingers fumbling for the key in his pocket. “Get comfy.”

Harry ends up on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Hands up already, just waiting, pliant like he’s giving himself in. _Wrong. All wrong._ Louis hesitates. He’s anticipating the moment Harry curls his hands into fists and smacks him around the head, dizzies him so he can steal Louis’ wallet and his keys and his phone and make a break for it.

“You wanna be under the covers?”

“No.” Harry shakes his head, still looking up. “No, this is fine.”

_I’m handcuffing you to a fucking bed, Styles. I split your lip open. What about this is fine, to you?_

Louis can feel Harry’s stare shift when he leans over him, when he holds one of his wrists steady so he can undo the clasp and start to thread it through the bedframe. It gets stuck, and when he tugs it through to the other side with a grunt, Harry lets out this quiet sound.

“Easy, easy,” he whispers, eyes closed.

“Sorry–”

“Fine, it’s fine,” Harry says. Louis blinks down at him, at his short hair splayed on the pillow. Louis isn’t used to seeing it like this, so trimmed, but wild enough that the cut isn’t recent. The first time Louis ever saw Harry, his hair was a mess, curly and all over the place, and then it was windswept, then trimmed, then long, long, longer, at his shoulders. The most recent photo he saw was a leak from someone inside, when Harry cut it all off, the sides almost shaved. Louis was very quiet during that meeting. It’d been a while since they’d seen each other, then. “Just–. Tender.”

Louis almost stops completely. This feels wrong. This feels excessive. But then what would he do, otherwise? He’s not going to handcuff them together. Never in a million years. _Bad idea. Very bad idea. Erase it completely._

“Okay?” Louis checks, once he’s got the handcuffs secured again, Harry’s arms above his head and his blouse stretched over his torso, thin strip of skin along the waistline of his jeans poking through.

Harry nods and keeps his eyes shut.

_I don’t think this is okay._

“Should I turn off the light?

Harry shakes his head.

“Alright.”

Louis lies on his side, away from Harry, and tries to figure out at which point his main concern of the evening became accommodating somebody who’s in police custody. His custody. His custody, in the middle of nowhere, at this ridiculous _Motel 6 _when Harry should already be back in the city, awaiting his charges. Louis should have called the police, just like Harry himself suggested. But he hasn’t. He hasn’t called them.

Nobody knows where they are right now. Nobody will know until Louis calls it in. Until somebody finds Harry’s precious car with the tires shot out and the drivers side door still hanging open.

“Are you scared?” Louis asks. Harry’s breathing has evened out. He’s probably asleep.

The reply comes a moment later, sluggish and soft.

“Scared of what.”

“I dunno,” Louis says, picking at a loose thread. “Going to court? Prison?”

“Not really,” Harry says, huffing a breath that might be a laugh. “It’s more, like. Not seeing my mom on the holiday’s and stuff, that’s going to hurt. We don’t really see each other anyway because of…well. Obviously.”

“Right.” Because Harry has a family, somewhere, that he still sees. Maine, maybe. Louis wonders if they’ll ever know each other well enough to learn those things, where they came from, how they grew up. That’s probably never going to happen.

“And, like. All my plants are gonna die,” Harry continues, a sad whisper. “They’re just gonna sit on the windowsill and die off within a couple days and the whole apartment is gonna smell like rot. All that hard work and attention and then they’re just gonna die off.” 

Louis stares at the wall. He expected Harry to say no, but he didn’t expect any of what followed. He wonders what Harry’s ‘apartment’ looks like. How many places he actually has, how many he’s filled with plants only to have to move on and let them die. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other. Maybe he’s finally settled somewhere. Somewhere secluded. Harry and his house plants.

Louis’ police brain should be trying to suck this information out. He should be playing Harry like a fucking fiddle right now.

“I’ve never hurt anyone, y’know,” Harry says, then. “Not directly.”

Louis turns over to look at him, remembering all the times he’s been leant over a sink with ice melting and fumbling down his wrists, seeing red. Harry shifts his gaze from the ceiling over to Louis’ face.

“Aside from you,” he amends. “But I didn’t have a choice, then. And you always hurt me back, or hurt me first, so. Fair’s fair.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Styles.”

Harry just shrugs. The quirk of his mouth isn’t quite a smile. He’s just looking, blinking tiredly.

That’s all they seem to have done, for most of the time they’ve known each other. Watching. Colliding occasionally, but most times they’ve just orbited each other from afar. Louis has this dream sometimes, dark club full up with smoke, and there’s Harry across the room, well within reach, but Louis has no means to take him down. They chase each other all night, Louis’ eyes saying _I see you, I fucking see you, _and Harry, letting the buttons of his blouse undo as the night wears on, surrounded by socialites and people with more money than would ever be necessary, staring right back. _I know. I see you. I see you, too._

Except that dream was real, and it just comes to Louis now when he hits the pillow most nights, when he’s staring out into the busy city, fridge buzzing in the corner, his apartment dark blue and quiet. He thinks about it a lot, how close they came to each other, the way Harry had been waiting for him at the door, letting him in past security like they were old friends, smiling serene and beautiful, because he knew there was nothing Louis could do but watch.

But it’s been a long time. It’s been a long time, and Harry’s not trying to run away right now.

“What were you doing in California?” Louis asks, head propped up in his hand, doing what he does best. Watching Harry’s face.

Harry shrugs.

“Come on, Styles,” Louis wheedles. “You can tell me now, or you can tell me in the interrogation room tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Harry says mulishly, flicking his eyes Louis’ way, and_ there_, right there. There he is.

“You want me to believe you came all the way back here for a date?” Louis says, shifting closer. “That you came back to the place any LA cop could arrest you on sight, for a nice meal and a bottle of wine and a kiss goodnight?

“Shut up, Louis,” Harry grits, flushing and looking away sharply. His jaw shifts as he swallows.

“No, go on,” Louis says with a wave of his hand. “I’m interested, really. Who’s the mystery–”

“Just leave it alone.”

Louis stares him down, watches the way he shifts in the sheets, the way he refuses to even look Louis’ way, now. This whole night, this entire _day_, has felt like something out of touch with reality, like some kind of weird, warped movie script that they’re barely managing to follow along with. Louis isn’t sure if Harry’s written the screenplay, or if he’s the one with the pen. If they’ve both been scribbling all over the pages.

But this, Harry’s eyesore of a car parked in Silver Lake after months of absolute radio silence, a country wide manhunt being conducted while Harry’s been locked up watering plants, only to appear in the very place he should never even think of appearing. It doesn’t add up.

“You wanted to get caught, didn’t you?” Louis says quietly, breath held in his chest. He watches Harry still, watches him swallow slow and careful. Louis leans closer, delighted in catching Harry out, finally, in a lie. “You wanted me to find you. Is that it, Styles?”

“Louis,” Harry grits out, like the very word pains him, eyes shiny as he rolls his face back towards Louis’, body shifting. His arms pull at the cuffs.

“Well? Tell me,” Louis urges, fire in his stomach. “Tell me the fucking truth. For once in your life, can you tell me something _real?_”

“I think about kissing you,” Harry says, fast and all at once, so achingly honest that Louis reels back.

“Is that it?” he breathes.

“That’s it,” Harry says, eyes blazing. “All the fucking time. I think about you, alright? I do.”

“Is that it, is it?” Louis repeats, alarm bells ringing between his ears. His entire body is flushing hot but he feels disconnected from it, floating through some inbetween place, his rational police brain and his own self-conscience with their barrels pointed at one another.

Harry shrugs, cheeks flamed. The attempted nonchalance falls flat. “I was kind of hoping you’d find me sooner. I’ve been driving that stupid car around for ages, now.”

“Harry, what–” Louis clenches his eyes shut, all the breath in his lungs squeezed out like they’re being held in a vice grip. Harry is a criminal. Harry is a compulsive liar. Fucking with people, fucking with _Louis_, is what he does. He’s a goddamn criminal with a lot of people on both sides of the coin looking for him, but somehow it’s always the two of them that run headfirst into each other.

“You _knew _I would arrest you,” Louis says fiercely. “You knew that. Why the fuck would you do something so_ stupid?_”

Harry just looks up at Louis through his lashes for a long time. Slow, measured blinks, the pink in his cheeks gone blotchy.

“You didn’t want the kid at the desk to call the police, did you?” he finally says, so quiet Louis almost can’t make out the words.

It’s Louis’ turn to say nothing, to flush.

“There’s probably a station around here, somewhere. A marshall or something, even. You could have just handed me in. You could have borrowed a squad car and taken me.”

Louis doesn’t like this. He can feel Harry twisting at his insides, turning the conversation around. He can fucking feel it happening but he doesn’t know how to stop it, mostly because it’s Harry, and Harry has this way of disarming people just with a look, but also because he’s absolutely right. Louis could have done all of those things. He should have called for backup.

“But you didn’t,” Harry says unhelpfully, like he’s reading Louis’ mind, now, too.

Maybe he’s been reading Louis’ mind all night. Maybe he’s just been stringing Louis along for the ride, seeing how far he can push things before disappearing for good; see how far he can make Louis chase him, all the way out into the middle of nowhere, if he can get Louis to shoot at him, to pay for his food, get him to light his cigarettes. Louis goes red just thinking about that, the skip of Harry’s capable fingers over the lighter, suddenly feeble the moment Louis swooped in to light the flame.

“Why didn’t you?”

_Because I wanted to be the one to bring you in._

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Louis hisses.

_Because you’ve been pulling me along now for years and I have to be the one to see you finally let go._

“You won’t turn me in, Louis.” Harry pulls at the cuffs, leering. “I know you won’t. You’re gonna miss this too much.”

_Because I wanted you all to myself._

“Try me,” Louis says.

_Because I think about kissing you, too._

Louis could lie and indulge in the cliche. He could say he doesn’t know who leans in first, but Harry is handcuffed to the bed.

It’s fierce. Painful, almost. Their teeth click because Harry squirms at first, this excited jolt of his body that pushes their chests together, but all it takes is Louis’ hand on his neck to settle him, to have him gasping into Louis’ mouth, and then it’s wet, warm, Cali heat and smoke and vending machine candy. Harry kisses like he’s dying for it, like he’s taking, taking, taking, and he’s good, he’s so fucking good, because taking is what he’s been doing for so long.

The metallic _clang _of the handcuffs makes Louis’ ears ring. Harry won’t stop shifting, bringing his legs up just so he can touch more of his body to Louis’, just so he can rest his thigh over the small of Louis’ back. He’s breathing heavily, stuck on his back, arms up around his ears. Louis wonders if things are muffled, if Harry likes that, if he’d ever tell Louis that he does.

“Lou,” Harry manages between kisses, between his bottom lip fit firm and safe between Louis’, thumb against his pulse, the rabbiting of it reassuring in the most bizarre way. _You feel it too. Panic. Lust. Adrenaline. Anxiety. _“Wanna. I have to touch.”

Louis shakes his head. “No. Not yet.”

Harry’s reaction to that is to thrash, to throw his head back, whine when Louis gets his mouth on his neck. He pulls harder at the cuffs, tugs, tugs, tugs.

“Please,” he begs. His breaths are raspy. “This. I can’t–. I can’t–”

“Hey,” Louis pulls back, watching, raking over Harry’s flushed face, his damp eyes, damp mouth, the almost crazed way he blinks when their gazes lock together. “Is it okay? Is this–”

“It is,” Harry nods, frantic. “It’s. It is, I just need. I need to touch you. Please. I can’t, like.”

“Okay,” Louis whispers, palming gently at Harry’s stomach. “Okay, babe. Okay.”

Harry won’t stop writhing, hands shaking as Louis’ own trembling fingers try to fit the key into the lock. One goes free, then the other, and in the next second Harry’s hands are on him, cupping Louis’ entire face in his palms, just like Louis knew he would. Now that it’s happening, now that they’ve finally broken each other down, Louis can admit that he’s wanted this, the shame and the desire and fear swirling deep in the pit of his stomach for so long now that it’s made him fucking ache. He’s wanted it since he first started to trail Harry. _Styles. That’s our guy. Six foot, medium build, brown hair, green eyes. _He’s wanted it since he watched Harry stumble through bars, stumble through the streets, playing the part he needed to play so he could play everyone else like he’d rigged all the cards.

Louis’ wanted this since day one, when he finally realized that Harry, sweet Harry who’d seen something bad, something he shouldn’t have seen, had fucked them all over so fiercely that Louis had been pissed off and impressed at the same time.

“What else?” Louis says, because he has to know, eyes slamming shut at the feeling of Harry’s hands curling up in his shirt.

“What?” Harry pants, lip shiny. The cut there must be aching but he doesn’t stop pushing against the heat of Louis’ mouth. He leans into it.

“What else are you gonna confess to me?” Louis says, fingers tight in the short hair at the back of Harry’s head. “I wanna know.”

“I’m, fuck–” Harry trembles, this full-body thing that just makes Louis want to hold him tighter, their hips pressing in. “I’m lonely.”

“Harry–”

“I’m really lonely,” Harry says, hiding the words into Louis’ neck, wet and hot. Louis cups him through his jeans. “You make me laugh and I’m fucking lonely doing this but I don’t know how to stop. I’m in too deep to stop.”

“I’ll water your plants for you,” Louis says, hissing. Harry’s digging his nails in, now. “When you’re gone, I’ll look after them.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Harry says, eyes shiny.

“Tell me where you live.”

Harry kisses him, shakes his head all at once. _Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. _Even like this, locked together, baring all, he still won’t give it up.

_Give up, _Louis wants to whisper, and then at the same time, _keep running._

It’s never felt like this before. It’s never felt this full. The only time it’s ever felt half as good is when it’s just been them, a room full of people or a busy street, and Louis, constantly telling himself to stop thinking _what if _and _if only_.

_Tell me where you are, Styles. Tell me how to find you._

There’s only one way to make sure he keeps Harry close, and it’s the one thing he’s been avoiding, because once he hands Harry in the game is over. It’s just Louis and LA and nothing exciting waiting for him in the dark corners, nothing to pull him back to reality.

He’s just going to have to live with it.

Harry bites down hard enough to leave a mark when he comes.

-

They didn’t close the blinds last night. Noon heat stings here but morning heat soothes, pink and raw like an open wound, a flurry of it tinting the entire room in a blush, like the day knows what they did, knows that in the aftermath, Harry wouldn’t let Louis go, wouldn’t let Louis see him cry. They fell asleep atop the sheets, and that’s where Louis wakes now, cracking his eyes open and waiting for the room to stop looking so misty.

Television on mute. Bathroom door ajar. Louis tilts his head. The lamp is off.

His biceps ache. His entire body aches, really, the muscles in his calves pulling as he shifts his feet.

“Harry,” he murmurs, voice shot. He tries to roll over, but finds himself stuck, tangled in his own arms. His limbs jerk.

Bleary, Louis peers up at the place his wrists are cuffed to the bed.

Harry’s gone. Louis’ pockets are empty.

The key sits innocently on the bedside table.

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i had an explanation
> 
> please say hi in the comments or come say hey on tumblr!! made a little post [here](https://fondleeds.tumblr.com/post/189145118430/remember-you-well-by-fondleeds-um-harry-starts) if u would be so kind to check that out
> 
> much love!!
> 
> ♡♡♡


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